


Everything's Alright

by Faiz



Category: Power Rangers Dino Charge, Power Rangers SPD
Genre: Eventual Character Death, F/M, M/M, Memory Altering, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, Romance, To the Moon AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-05-19 11:24:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5965522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faiz/pseuds/Faiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Schuyler Tate and Dr. Bridge Carson work for SPD's fairly new branch of Memory Traversal, using new technology to be able to go into the memories of those who are about to pass away and help rewrite their memories to fulfill their dreams so they can pass on happy.</p><p>In their more recent case, they're called by the younger sister of a man named Chase Randall who's on his deathbed after a car accident, who desperately wanted to fix the mistakes he made in the past with one Riley Griffin back when they were still working together in the cafe of a Dinosaur Museum.</p><p>ON INDEFINITE HIATUS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everything's Not Alright

_2035_

“So what happened?”

“Hit by a car it seems. He wasn’t paying attention at all, knocked into a coma. Seems like the only thing keeping him alive is a machine. What a way to go...” Bridge’s face fell slightly, thinking about the incident that had occurred only a day or two ago.

Sky hummed in response to his partner’s quiet lament of someone they hadn’t even met yet (and considering the circumstances, probably never will.) as they walked down the rather empty hallways of the Amber Beach hospital, dragging a large heavy box along with them. It was late at night, the only people traversing the hallways besides themselves were the nurses walking in to check on their patients. 

“Here it is.” Bridge stopped him in front of one of the doors near the very end of the hall. 

“We shouldn’t be doing this Bridge.”

“We were asked to.”

“We’ve never--” But Sky was already too late, Bridge was pushing the door open to the small hospital room. 

It was pretty empty, clearly the patient hadn’t been there long at all because there weren’t any signs of it being lived in at all. No flowers, no gifts, nothing. The only signs of life were the patient himself and a young lady sitting by his bed, eyes staring at the television that was playing silently in a high corner of the room. But they were unfocused on it, she wasn’t watching it. It took her a few moments to even realize they had entered, but she was snapped back into reality when she saw them off to the side and she stood up quickly.

“Are you two from the agency?” She asked them. Her voice threw Sky off for a moment. She wasn’t from around here. “My name is Chloe Randall...I’m his sister.” She gestured towards the man in the bed.

“Yes, my name is Dr. Bridge Carson, the main technician of this duo. And the grumpy looking man next to me is Dr. Schuyler Tate. But please, call him Sky. It makes him seem more approachable.” 

Sky furrowed his brow at Bridge’s comment. “We’re just a bit concerned. We don’t usually do people as young as him. Usually the people we do this on are much older...On their way out.”

“But you can still do it, right? It’s still possible?” She asked. 

“Well...It all depends on him.” Sky admitted. “I don’t know if we’d have enough memory from him to be able to complete what he wanted.”

“What _is_ his wish?” Bridge asked curiously.

Chloe went silent for a moment, looking at her brother’s still body. The only sound in the room was the steady beat of the heart monitor next to his bed. “Well...Chase said that what he wanted was...Riley.”

“Riley?” Sky sounded incredulous. “A _girl_?”

“Boy.” Chloe corrected. “But...that’s what he wanted. To fix a mistake he made with Riley a long time ago.”

Bridge and Sky looked at each other before Sky finally spoke. “It’s going to be difficult. It’s one thing to give them a childhood dream to fulfill. But this relies on someone else to play along.”

Chloe’s face fell. “You can’t do it…”

Bridge waved his hands. “We can definitely give it a shot.” He looked at Sky. “Right?”

Sky took a deep breath. “Alright. We’ll try.”

Chloe looked more relieved as Bridge began setting up the equipment from the box. Sky watched her turn to her brother Chase and gently grab his hand, whispering something into his ear. A quiet reassurance perhaps, before she looked back up at Sky. “So...How exactly does this all work? Chase never explained it to me when he talked about it.”

Sky almost wanted to ask why someone Chase’s age would even be thinking about it. He was only in his thirties, but he decided against asking Chloe, doubting that she’d know the answer herself.

“Well, we’re going to go into Chase’s memories. From there we’ll manage to hop back far enough through all the memories he’s had to an ideal point where we can plant a desire into Chase’s mind from a younger age. In this case it’d have to be something involving this Riley. We flip the switch and hope that the desire sticks long enough for Chase to prevent whatever mistake he made. Then in his own mind, he’ll see the life he hoped for.”

“So none of it will actually happen. It’ll all just be in his head?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll be happy.”

“That’s the goal.”

Chloe seemed to be content with that answer, her tense posture loosening slightly.

“The system’s ready.” Bridge said quietly, moving forward to place a helmet onto Chase’s head while wearing one of his own. “Ready when you are Sky.” 

“Good luck you two.” Chloe whispered.

Sky nodded at her before placing his own helmet on his head. “We’ll be going to his last accessible memory before the accident happened, and then go on from there. Make sure the doctor keeps an eye on Chase’s condition. Press this button here on the machine if you need to warn us of something so we can get out of there.”

She nodded, and soon after Bridge typed something onto the machine he had set up, the hospital room melted away leaving Bridge and Sky in blank void for a few moments before they arrived suddenly on a sidewalk in front of a shop selling skateboards and other skating paraphernalia. In front of it, looking at a display intently was Chase himself, looking more lively than the man they had just seen on his deathbed, though there was an air of tiredness around him, like even now he still wasn’t quite right.

“Excuse me?” Bridge moved forward first, tapping Chase on the shoulder.

The man looked surprised. “Oh, um. Do I know you two?”

“Yes. Well, no. I mean, sort of. We know you in the near future but you don’t know us. I mean you obviously knew of us, er will know about us. Well maybe you already know of us already but what I’m saying is you called us but we never actually me--” Sky covered Bridge’s mouth before he continued any further.

“We’re from SPD’s branch of memory traversal.”

Chase’s eyes widened in recognition. “Oh...I was just thinking about calling you guys to ask some questions…”

“You already have! Er...You’re going to. Well for us you already did but for you it still hasn’t happened yet, but it’s going to happen soon and--” Bridge stopped himself after seeing the look on Sky’s face.

“Don’t confuse him. We’ll have to reboot and start over again if you do that.”

“So you guys are here to grant my wish?” Chase looked between the both of them.

“Riley?” Bridge asked.

Chase nodded. “Riley.”

“...What about Riley?” Sky pressed.

“I fucked up. Bad.” Chase admitted. “I completely blew him off when I really didn’t want to...I want to change that. I want to say what I really meant, but couldn’t. But it happened so long ago, like 20 years ago already...”

“Well...Alright.” Sky sighed. “We’re going to be hopping back through your memories in little jumps. We’re going to need important things, like mementos to be able to go further and further back until we can get the right desire in your head. Then we’ll come back and flip the switch.”

“Do you have anything particularly special on you? Anything?” Bridge asked. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be about Riley at the moment. Just anything from the past.”

Chase felt around himself for a moment, before pulling out his wallet and with it a piece of folded up paper. “Will this work?”

Bridge looked at it for a few moments. “Looks like it. Thank you.” He grinned. “Well, we’ll be going.”

Chase grinned at them, the tiredness that had been etched onto his face previously momentarily vanishing for just a few precious moments.

That was when Sky pulled out his SPD communicator and pressed a button on it, and the world all around them froze in place. “Well, let’s get going then. I want this to get done as quickly as possible.” 

He grabbed the piece of paper from Bridge’s grasp and it started glowing gently, and the world all around them, along with Chase Randall began to melt away again to reconstruct another memory, from a mere 3 years before at the local Amber Beach carnival.


	2. Unfortunate Fortunes

_2032_

The air felt lively around Bridge and Sky, bright neon lights coloring the backdrop as the blurred unrecognizable citizens of Amber Beach ran around with giggles and shrieks as they went from attraction to attraction. Bridge and Sky looked around in confusion, not immediately spotting Chase in the waves of people that were passing by. Bridge was the first one to see them, being the only people who didn’t look like a blurred shadow and standing out against the crowds, and he tugged Sky by the sleeve of his uniform, pulling him up against the wall of one of the show buildings, point out Chase and his sister Chloe standing by one of those fortune teller machines that were usually around carnivals. Both of them approached quietly, tiptoeing mostly out of habit, because no one could actually see or feel them unless they made themselves visible on purpose.

“Come on Chloe, it’ll be fun! I know it doesn’t actually mean anything, but might as well take a squiz huh?” Chase grinned, digging for a dollar in his pocket.

“Chase, these weird fortune teller machines are so creepy…” Chloe shivered, looking at the pirate mannequin with apprehension. 

Bridge tapped the glass. “Y’know I never thought about it, but she’s right y’know. Never realized how creepy these things look.”

“Shush Bridge.” Sky watched the pair of siblings talk together. 

“It's not every day that my little sister comes to visit from New Zealand. You can take your fortune home with you!” Chase finally pulled out a dollar and shoved it into the old machine. 

“...What a cheap souvenir.”

“I know right?”

Both of the siblings giggled, watching the strange mannequin of what was meant to be a fortune teller come to life and start speaking. It was easy to tell that the thing was incredibly old, the voice itself scratchy and low quality. It didn’t help that none of the words matched the lips, all of it at least two seconds out of sync. But it stilled dispensed the small cards at the end of the speech, and Chase grabbed them and handed one to Chloe before looking at his own.

“You have had to get by many great obstacles in your life with more to come, but the payoff will let you finally achieve greatness.” Chase read aloud, the smile on his face faltering slightly as he said it.

Chloe herself didn’t seem to notice, instead pouting at her own card. “Mine is just reminding me to eat 3 meals a day. At least yours sounds more like a fortune!”

Chase’s bright grin was back firmly on his face as quickly as it had left. “Well, better luck next time then. But maybe you needed the reminder! Now, I was thinking about going to--” 

But wherever Chase was going to mention they never found out, because he paused right in the middle of his words to look at somewhere beyond where Bridge and Sky were still standing. Both of them turned around quickly to see what he was staring at, not really sure until they all suddenly appeared in clarity out of the sea of shadowy figures. It was a family, that much was obvious. Two very young kids, one boy and one girl. The boy was running along next to the taller man, but Chase’s focus seemed to be trained on the shorter man who was wearing a rather bright green sweater and holding the little girl in his arms.

“...Is that Riley?” Bridge whispered in Sky’s ear. “Bit plainer than expected isn’t he?”

Sky didn’t say anything, though he had to inwardly agree that it was true. Blond hair and grey eyes, this Riley guy didn’t seem like a guy who’d stand out in a crowd. There had to be something about him that they were missing, because Chase was staring so hard he was practically boring holes through him, and yet Riley didn’t seem to notice him at all. He was too focused on his own family to even realize that Chase was standing there with his sister. Chloe seemed concerned as well from Chase’s sudden change in demeanor, shaking his shoulder.

“Chase, are you alright? Chase?” 

Chase stayed silent as Riley and his family passed by, his eyebrows furrowing slightly and his mouth turning downwards in a rather upset scowl. 

“Atlas, Atlas stay back here don’t run off!” Riley called out to the little boy who had gotten ahead of them. Too focused on the pursuit of the child, he didn’t notice when the shoe of the little girl in his arms fell onto the ground.

Chase immediately stepped forward, picking up the tiny shoe. He held it up and called out “Hey you--” 

But they were already out of sight. They had completely blended right back into the crowd around them, leaving Chase there standing in the middle of it all, getting jostled from side to side from people who passed by. Some of them muttered angrily at him, telling him to get out of the way. But he had a distant look on his face, staring at the baby’s shoe in his hands. 

“There must be something about that guy if Chase is still like this after so long.” Sky muttered as Chloe finally got fed up with standing off to the side alone and dragged Chase back out of the crowd. “I’ll never understand romance.”

“Riley seems to be fine on the other hand. His family seems cute enough anyways.” Bridge tilted his head to the side. “Though I admit, I was still expecting something more spectacular. They’re just an average family.”

Sky was the one to grab Bridge this time, bringing them closer to where Chase and Chloe were standing. 

“What are you going to do with it?” Chloe asked, plucking the shoe out of her brother’s grasp. “Shouldn’t we put it in the lost and found? They’re probably looking for it.”

Chase was basically glaring at the shoe, and Chloe grew more and more concerned the longer that Chase didn’t respond. 

“Chase, come on--”

Chase suddenly slammed the shoe on top of the trash can they were standing next to, making his younger sister jump back at the sudden aggression. “Let’s just leave it there. They’ll come back for it.”

“But--”

“Leave it, Chloe.” And as suddenly as the emotions had arrived, they disappeared. “Come on, let’s go do something. Anything. I’ll buy you some funnel cake if you want.”

“Are...are you sure you’re alright?” She asked.

“I’m fine.” Chase assured her. “Now let’s go.”

Chloe didn’t look like she believed him. She took one last look at the tiny shoe that Chase had left on top of the trashcan before she followed after her brother into the crowd of people that passed by. Sky sighed and pulled out his SPD license, freezing everyone in place. The shoe sitting on the trashcan had started glowing, ever so faintly and grew even brighter as Sky approached it. He picked it up and examined it in closer detail as it began to glow even more brightly. 

“I’m kinda worried about Chase.” Bridge said suddenly. “I mean...Since Riley has a family and like..adopted kinds and things, don’t you think it’s probably been a long time since Chase did whatever he did? Shouldn’t he be over it by now?”

“It’s a bit too late to be asking that now Bridge.” Sky pointed out, looking away from the memento. “What’s done is done, we’re just doing our best to change it in his favor.”

Bridge frowned. “Yeah, I know. He’ll be happy and all that when… _if_ all of this works...but...”

“Now’s not the time to feel bad, Bridge. Let’s keep going.” Sky held up the little shoe. “We didn’t go too far back, so maybe this’ll give us a bit of a bigger jump.”

“...alright.” 

Just the same as before, the world around them began to melt away to pave way to the next part of Chase’s memories that they would fall into. The whole thing was still a mystery to them, but at least they were aware of an important piece of the puzzle now. Riley had appeared, even if it were only for a brief moment. But it was clear that whatever Riley meant to Chase, it was bigger than they had even imagined.


	3. Photographs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeey, it's been awhile hasn't it? I haven't written much fanfic in awhile to be honest. Unfortunately school was incredibly stressful for me this semester, so I didn't really have much time for leisure writing. But with finals nearly over, I think I'll finally have time to get back to this fic! (and hopefully others!) 
> 
> Hope you enjoy :)

_2028_

They had landed in a kitchen. It was small, and fairly cluttered with boxes and packaging littering the tiled floor. It seemed like Chase had just moved into this place, and had given up packing for the moment as Bridge and Sky saw him sitting at the kitchen table using a large box as a makeshift seat. A box of chicken nuggets was sitting in front of him that he was glaring at pretty hard. It looked like Chase had barely touched them, because his mind was clearly elsewhere. Bridge couldn’t help but look down at Chase’s phone, which had buzzed as soon as they had landed. A message from someone named Tyler, and a cut off message about Riley and something about a child. But he couldn’t see the rest of the message as Chase’s phone dimmed.

Sky sighed, looking around. “We ended up in a pretty enclosed space. It’s going to be hell trying to find a memento in this place.” 

“We’re going to have to get creative then!” Bridge chirped, turning away from the phone and already moving ahead of Sky to examine what was all around them. 

From the looks of it, they were basically just confined to that tiny apartment kitchen. Beyond the doorway instead of the rest of the apartment it just fell away into nothingness. There wasn’t much to see in the kitchen because most of it was still confined in it’s own boxes. Chase himself had barely budged an inch since they had arrived still staring at his food as if the nuggets had just personally insulted his family’s honor. Bridge had actually paused for a few moments staring at his figure to see if he was breathing before he had to remind himself that this was a memory, so of course he had to be alive. 

“Look, I don’t think we’re going to find anything here we may as well reset--” Sky was cut off suddenly when Chase slammed his hands onto the table angrily. 

They both went quiet as Chase grabbed some of his food and angrily shoved it into his mouth as he reached down towards a box that was by his feet. When he sat up straight again, he dumped the contents of the small box over the table. At least a hundred photographs scattered all over it, full of various scenes throughout the years. There were couple of pictures of Chase and Chloe, Chase with some people that neither Bridge nor Sky recognized, all of them wearing what looked like restaurant uniforms with dinosaurs emblazoned on the aprons. They all looked very young, practically beaming as they laughed at antics occurring off camera, and there were even large skeletons of dinosaurs in the backdrop. But the photos that stood out the most were the ones closest to Chase. There was a shakiness to his hands, like he wanted to grip the photos tightly but didn’t want to bend or crumple them. He was staring at the photos with an even stronger intensity than he had been with his food earlier.

They were wedding photos, with the familiar face of Riley beaming radiantly with his arms wrapped around the man they had only managed to capture a glimpse of in the previous memory. Chase huffed, throwing the photos suddenly down the table and lifting his arms to scrub away the tears that had begun forming in his eyes. His skin was flushed red from the irritation when he finally stopped, though his eyes were still shining from wetness. He stood up from the box, kicking it backwards away from him as he searched for something in the near empty drawers of the kitchen. Bridge and Sky watched him, unsure if this sudden movement would lead them closer towards being able to jump back in the memories again. They had barely seen Riley at all yet, how were they supposed to figure out what had gone wrong? 

Chase returned to the table, with a pair of scissors in hand. He carefully lifted up one of the photos, his hands still shaking as he sliced a piece off of the corner. He did it again, and again, and again. He kept cutting away from one side, moving faster and faster until the other man had disappeared leaving Riley alone in the image, clinging onto nothingness. Chase moved the blade over Riley’s face but he stopped suddenly. He stood there, with the blades of the scissors just barely nipping Riley’s cheek. But it seemed as though he couldn’t will himself to go any further, and he let the photo fall from his fingertips and land in the piles of cut up pieces.

“Do you think that’s…?” Bridge asked wonderingly, pointing at the cut up photo.

“Possibly.” Sky muttered, but internally doubting it. Nothing about it radiated memories like the last one had. But that made no sense, if that photo wasn’t the memento to send them back, then what was?

Chase sighed, pushing the photos away and picking up his long-since abandoned food and holding it up. “I….I don’t even like chicken nuggets.” He grimaced and set it back down.

That seemed to have activate something, and both Sky and Bridge noticed it immediately as soon as the cardboard box hit the table. This time Bridge had pulled out his SPD license, and Chase had frozen suddenly. The memory stopped, and the box of chicken nuggets had begun to glow brightly.

“I can’t believe it.” Sky shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand how the minds of any our clients work.” 

“The mind is a strange place.” Bridge laughed, picking up the box.

“Of course you’d know that.” Sky added, rolling his eyes.

Bridge only grinned as the world began to fade around them.


	4. Don't Know Why, Don't Know Why

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so this chapter came out much sooner than the last! I was actually having a lot of trouble reading it, but I seemed to have finally been rider kicked in the face with inspiration and I was finally able to finish it! I'm hoping that with rolling this chapter out I'm gonna be able to work on some other fics and maybe even have another chapter out sooner rather than later. 
> 
> Another thing to note: I made a small revision to the last chapter. I originally thought I'd have to edit the first two chapters more extensively (which I honestly still might later, but for now I decided finishing the fic has my priority) but it turns out that last chapter was the biggest offender. It was nothing major, I just realized that I wanted each memento to connect to the next chapter, and I realized the baby shoes never connected to something in chapter 3. I just added a sentence or two that kinda tied them together. I might rewrite the whole chapter at some point as I wasn't satisfied with chapter 3 compared to the others.
> 
> But for now, I hope you'll enjoy chapter 4~

_2024_

Another small room.

But this time, it was quite a different situation from the last memory they had been in. It wasn’t sad or lonely in the slightest, instead what seemed to be a small dressing room was radiating with excitement, and it contained more than just the one lonely human being. Bridge and Sky didn’t even see Chase (but assumed he had to be there), but the first thing their eyes were drawn to was a young man with dark blond hair and clad in a handsome suit standing in the middle of the room. It was like he himself was lighting up the room, glowing in happiness. He was also very intently eating a box of chicken nuggets, which somewhat ruined the effect of almost ethereal beauty. It was quite the contrast to the Riley they had seen in previous memories. The plain boy they had marveled at Chase loving in the past memories suddenly seemed done up to an almost angelic state, or maybe Bridge was exaggerating a bit in his mind as he and Sky pieced together more of Chase’s story.

“Riley, I swear to god. Today is your special day and you’re dressed in the most expensive clothing you’ve ever worn in your life and _you’re eating chicken nuggets from the Dino Bite?!_ ” A strangely familiar looking woman in a pale pink dress was fussing over Riley, and they realized that she had been present in some of Chase’s photos in his previous memory. 

She also looked incredibly stressed about Riley’s action, since she was holding a napkin beneath Riley’s chin as he continued to eat. Every shift and movement he made caused her to follow his mouth in a panic at the mere thought of even the smallest crumb falling onto his expensive outfit. But Riley had a slight upturn on his lips as he watched her panicked expression.

“I’m allowed to eat, aren’t I Shelby?” Riley asked in a mock innocent voice. “I didn’t get to eat breakfast this morning since we were getting the last of the preparations done!” He grinned a bit more widely as Shelby nearly shrieked when she just barely managed to catch a drip of ketchup that nearly fell onto Riley’s dark green tie. 

“Y’know...we went to all this trouble of finding foods that you’d actually eat at your reception,” Shelby mumbled, before sighing in relief as Riley finished eating, “I never realized just how much of a picky eater you are. Then again, all we ever ate around each other was fast food.”

Riley could only shrug, and the two friends shared a sweet moment of laughter, before it was interrupted by a dark-skinned young man with a cheery smile sticking his head through the doorway. “Everyone else is ready to go. How about you three?” The young man asked. He looked just as familiar as Shelby had been, probably another friend of Chase and Riley.

“Just a second Tyler, we’ll be out in a second.” Riley assured.

“Well don’t take too long, don’t want to keep Burt waiting!” Tyler gave Riley a wink before leaving.

Bridge could only smile slightly at Riley’s suddenly flushed face before he was suddenly reminded that Chase was in the room the whole time. He hadn’t spoken a word since they entered the memory, and he was standing off in the corner of the room with his eyes facing down towards his phone, and an unreadable expression etched on his face. Sky had seen him glance up momentarily at the sound of Tyler’s voice, but he had frowned when the name Burt came up and his face had steeled as soon as the cheery man had disappeared. 

The other two occupants of the room hadn’t noticed this though, and Shelby turned Riley towards herself, dusting him off and adjusting his tie.

“Ready?” Shelby asked, patting Riley on the shoulders.

“You know, you’ve changed. I don’t think I’ve seen you this worried about appearances or clothing before.” Riley responded teasingly.

“Well, today is your special day. I don’t want there to be any problems.” She smiled fondly at Riley.

Riley grinned back, before finally turning to Chase. “Come on, we can’t keep everyone waiting.”

The room was suddenly filled with a strange tension, as Riley reached forward and grabbed Chase’s hand with his own. His bright grin seemed to spread momentarily to Chase, the kiwi had looked up and smiled at his friend, but as soon as Shelby and Riley had turned their heads towards the door to exit, both Bridge and Sky saw his expression fall once again, his attention only on his hand laced with Riley’s as they exited the changing room. Bridge and Sky followed after quickly, both of them squinting their eyes from the sudden bright flash of blinding white light. When their eyes adjusted, they were standing in the middle of green. 

So, so much green. The fields around them looked like they went on for miles, and Bridge tugged on the sleeve of Sky’s uniform pointing in the distance. “I think we’re on a farm! Some sort of ranch maybe? I can hear something like horses, and maybe pigs--” Sky put his finger to his lips before Bridge could continue any further. 

“We need to find Chase again.” Sky muttered.

Once again they had lost their client in a large haze of mostly forgotten people, before they noticed him up at the very front of what was obviously the wedding ceremony. He was right next to Riley, clearly the spot of the best man. But he was staring at a spot just past Riley as the service continued on. His eyes were glazed over, and the words of the vows sounded muffled and distant to the two SPD employees. Not a bit of the vows had registered in Chase’s mind. The only thing in this part of the memory that was the sharpest clarity was Riley and his soon-to-be-husband, both of them staring deeply into each other’s eyes. 

They were startled, when the fuzzy sounds suddenly sharpened and the voice of the officiant almost boomed around them, announcing that the couple was now going to kiss. They could see Chase’s eyes slip shut just as the distance between Riley and Burt’s lips closed onto each other. The echoing hazy cheers seems to engulf Bridge and Sky as everything around them blurred together. These were choppy memories. All of them from a single day and meant to be in one cohesive narrative, but Chase’s emotions had been so frantic that only chunks here and there were clearly visible and others faded into obscurity. They had witnessed it before, many times in fact. Choppy memories were a fact of life when they had these older patients. But this was more disconcerting to Bridge and Sky, knowing that these sharp-yet-faded memories were the result of such strong feelings and not just old age. 

They were still in the same place as the ceremony, but the rows of chairs had dispersed and were now around tables that were set up. The faint pulsating of music was far away to their ears, and the sounds of conversation pressed against their ears even though they couldn’t quite make out what anyone was actually saying. They could see Riley off in the distance with his husband, talking happily to an unknown pair of figures. Bridge couldn’t help but wonder what their importance was, not to Chase but to Riley. But of course this wasn’t his memory, it was Chase’s. No matter how interested in his story that he was, they had to focus on Chase.

He was sitting with Shelby and Tyler, along with some others that had filled the photographs from before. They could catch the names of others, like Koda, Ivan, Phillip Kendall...But neither of them knew which names were assigned to who, but they must have been important to Chase, because unlike the rest of the people they were remembered. He was laughing and talking with them in short intervals, but every time he glanced over in Riley’s direction watching him make the rounds from table to table, his smile and laughs seemed forced. And as Riley got closer and closer to them, his attempts to keep with the conversation lulled, and he was focused more on a napkin sitting in front of him than he was his close friends.

Bridge and Sky moved in closer, hoping they’d get a memento of some sort. They watched Shelby lean over suddenly to see what Chase was doing, her face slightly frustrated. “Aren’t you going to talk more Chase? We haven’t been together as a group in years, this is no time to--” She paused, looking down. “Is that Rubik?”

Chase tried to move the napkin away from her. “Shelby--”

But it was too late, she picked up the square of paper and laughed. “It is! This is so cute, we need to give this to Riley.” The rest of the group seemed to agree with this, but Chase’s face was red with frustration. 

“No, it’s fine. It’s just a doodle…” He mumbled, trying to grab it back from Shelby.

“But Riley _adored_ Rubik. He’d love to see this!” 

That seemed to be the breaking point, because Chase didn’t say anything. But his mouth was slightly agape, and Bridge and Sky turned to see that Riley had finally arrived at their table, just as radiant as he had been in the dressing room. He happily greeted his friends one by one with a hug, all of them chatting happily and catching up with each other. As soon as he reached Chase and Shelby, the girl in pink proudly held up Chase’s doodle enough that Bridge and Sky could see it. 

Neither of them knew what Rubik looked like, but the drawing was surprisingly well done, definitely more than just the average doodle. And the way Riley’s face lit up at the sight of it made them assume it was a fairly accurate representation of his pet dog. 

“Chase drew it.” Shelby immediately told him. “Isn’t it cute?”

Riley beamed at Chase. “It’s amazing. Thank you Chase.” He leaned over and wrapped his arm around Chase. 

And finally, the smile on Chase’s face seemed to stick. Everything around them seemed to go out of focus, the clearest memories being Chase and Riley, both of them stuck in their own little world of Chase’s memories. 

“I knew how much you loved him.” Chase breathed. “I guess I wondered what it’d be like if he were still here. But I hope this doesn’t ruin my actual wedding gift, eh?”

“What is it?” Riley asked excitedly, setting down the napkin on the table as he pulled of a seat. “What did you get?”

“It’s a secret, mate. I’m not breathing a word.” Both of them started to laugh.

“Sky, the memento.” Bridge nudged him, pointing to the napkin which had started glowing.

“Now this one makes a bit more sense than the last one.” Sky said, picking it up.

“Oh, it made a bit more sense after seeing Riley. But I’m just glad we’re leaving this memory on a happy note. I’m not sure I could have handled another depressing end.”

Sky rolled his eyes as he pulled out his license, and the napkin began to glow even more brightly. 

“This is getting interesting Sky, I wonder where we’re going next?” Bridge asked, hoping that the world forming around them would just go faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI just as a fun little note, the chapter title comes from lyrics of a KPop song I've been listening to that ended up being startlingly fitting to the concept of the story after I watched the music video, haha. The song is Please Don't by K.Will if you're interested ;)

**Author's Note:**

> I recently watched someone let's play a game called 'To the Moon' and it was without a doubt one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen. If you haven't played it/watched it, I HIGHLY recommend you do. (the person in particular I watched was StephenPlays on YouTube) The game made me tear up multiple times. But I was so fascinated by the concept of traversing someone's memories that I had to give it a shot, and since I was also recently brought out of my weird anti-Chiley funk, I figured that this is a good a time as any to try.
> 
> My fanfic isn't exactly like the game itself (which is why you absolutely have to see it), but my fanfic also cannot do any justice to the original story of To the Moon. 
> 
> Another less important note: Looking at this fic now, it probably would have made more sense to use the Time Force rangers as the Memory Traversers, but I haven't really watched a lot of Time Force yet and don't have a good grasp on their characters. So Bridge and Sky from SPD it is. 
> 
> That's all for now, I sincerely hope you guys enjoy the story :)


End file.
